


Just a Nightmare

by ladyhabanera



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Light Angst, Nightmares, Post-In Hushed Whispers, Rogue Inquisitor - Freeform, but solas meets the inquisitor in the fade regardless of race?, idk if dwarves can have nightmares, so work with me here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 14:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13638186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyhabanera/pseuds/ladyhabanera
Summary: Inquisitor Cadash remembers the things she saw in the future at Redcliffe, and it haunts her dreams. She didn't even know she could dream. This is ridiculous.





	Just a Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how pleased I am with this, but I was dying to write something after this playthrough with my dwarf Inquisitor and her bear boyfriend. I just had this thought that she would struggle to cope with all this mage and Fade stuff as a dwarf. She's catching feelings though. Save her.

_“Andraste, have mercy. You shouldn’t be here. The dead should rest in peace. I was there, I saw you fall. Alexius’s spell left nothing but ash… Maybe I’ve just gone mad, but… if what you say is true, then this, everything I’ve been through, everything about this nightmare is a mistake.”_

Freydis bolted upright in bed. Though her cabin was warm, a sheen of cold sweat wet her back and brow. She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes, chasing away the nightmare. Maker, a sodding nightmare. She was a dwarf. Dwarves don’t dream. But with this blighted mark on her hand, she found herself in the Fade in her sleep for the first time in her life.

She hadn’t signed up for this. She hadn’t signed up for any of this. It was supposed to be a Carta deal, not a hole in the sky, not whatever the hell that thing on her hand was, not nightmares, not the feelings she felt… None of it. Blackwall had been right in that other future. Everything was a mistake, but it was all too real, and so had been his anger then. Anger she could work with. This sickening dread? Not so much.

She pulled a pair of breeches up over her short legs and tucked her sleeping shirt into them before shoving on the nearest pair of boots. Loathe as she was to admit it to herself, she was shaken and frightened. She knew that it was just a memory that had burned itself into her mind and that the fact that it was him made it even more personal, but to relive it again in the Fade when before sleep had been dreamless… It was too much. Too disorienting. Freydis knew that Blackwall was in his quarters, safe, but to put her mind at ease she had to see for herself.

She pulled a cloak around her shoulders as she went out of the door. She nodded to the scout making her rounds and quickened her stride. The harsh winter air of the mountains helped clear the fog of her dream and she welcomed it. In the dark, the stars were clear and sharp against the sky. Though she was a Surfacer, she could understand how other dwarves, Orzammar dwarves, could think that they’d fall up into the sky. She loved it, just not the Breach that tore it apart.

Freydis neared Blackwall’s quarters and stopped in her tracks. What was she supposed to say, exactly? She knew she was just being silly, but she had already come all this way. She furrowed her brow and bit her lip. Maybe she should just go back to her quarters, work on a report. While she stood deliberating in the snow, toes numb from the cold, the door to Blackwall’s quarters swung open. He stood there in his soft breeches and undershirt that lay partially open over his burly chest, his feet bare. He appeared to have been awake.

_Andraste’s ass, he’s as hairy as a dwarf,_ she thought. She took time to look him over, remind herself that he was in front of her, physical and real and untouched by that horrible future. His eyes were tired and blue, not enraged and crackling red with the tainted lyrium. His hair was pulled back, not in knots from rotting in a cell in Redcliffe’s castle.

He spoke first. “My lady? What are you doing out at this hour?”

Freydis blinked and shook her head as if to clear her mind. “I, uh, needed to take a walk and I came this way and thought I’d… visit?” She sounded unconvincing to herself, and he frowned beneath his beard.

“Has something happened?” he asked.

“No,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Can I come in? It’s a bit cold out here.”

He looked at her for a moment and then stepped to the side and extended an arm to motion her in. “Please do. Wouldn’t want our Herald to fall ill to the cold.”

“Thanks.” She strode past him, shrugging off her cloak and dropping it onto a nearby chair. She moved toward the fire to warm her hands and toes. Behind her, Blackwall shuffled around, and by the sound of his movements he was unsure of what to do with the Herald of Andraste in his quarters past midnight.

Freydis spoke before he could. “This is absolutely ridiculous, but I had a nightmare.”

“A nightmare, my lady?” he said from behind her. “I thought dwarves didn’t dream.”

“We don’t” She sighed. “I don’t. Well, I didn’t, before all of this. Solas says that the Mark connects me to the Fade, even though I’m a dwarf. I’ve been dreaming since I fell out of the Breach.”

Blackwall came up to stand beside her in front of the fire. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t know. I can’t imagine how unsettling that must be.”

She stared into the flames. “I see that future in Redcliffe, where everything is lost. I can’t forget it, so I dream about it.” She looked up at him. “I dream about you.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it and furrowed his brow.

She continued, looking back at the fire. “You read the official report. In that future… You went a year thinking Alexius killed me and watched the world fall to his Elder One. I found you in the castle dungeons, and you… You were so angry. Enraged that it was all a mistake, that you thought I died for nothing, that the world had become what it was. And then at the end, when Alexius was dead, before Dorian and I went back to the present, you and Bull and Leliana…” She swallowed to quell the sick feeling in her stomach. “You died. I watched those bastards kill you. You gave it all to get us back here, and I had to just stand there and watch you die. I…” She clenched her jaw and exhaled through her nose. “I’ve done some shitty things in my life, but nothing felt the way that that did.”

Blackwall was silent beside her. She wasn’t ready to look at him yet. She didn’t want him to see how shaken by all of this she was. Cadash got things done, Cadash didn’t let fear stand in her way, Cadash never let a man affect her like this, and yet… Andraste, what had she gotten into?

She turned toward the door, embarrassed by the cockup her life was turning into and how weak it made her feel. “I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. It’s stupid to let one bad dream get to me, right? We bring the mages to the Breach tomorrow; you need to rest. I’ll leave you be.”

She moved to pick up her cloak, but stopped when Blackwall called after her.

“My lady, wait.”

Freydis steeled herself and turned to look at him. His eyes were so sad.

“Have you been carrying this by yourself, all these days?” he asked softly.

She looked at her boots. “It’s fine.”

He sighed. “No, no it’s not. You may be the Herald, but you’re also a woman. I can’t begin to understand what you saw and how you feel, but know you’re not alone. You have allies. You have friends. Trust in them, and trust in yourself. You will succeed in this. You will shake the world to its core.” He gave a sad smile. “I admire your strength. I truly do. Neither of us are pristine in the slightest, but we’re here, for better or worse. And even with that future, I’d charge forward knowing that you’d be there.”

She wasn’t going to cry, but in that moment some leash she had on her budding feelings snapped. Freydis needed to feel him and know that he was solid and real. She stepped toward him and all but fell into his chest. She sighed into him, feeling the hair there tickle her face, the rise and fall of his breath, the steady thum-thum of his heart. He was so warm, hard but yielding. She’d allow herself this, just for now. Just long enough to chase away the rest of that memory.

His hands hovered about her shoulders, unsure and hesitant, before wrapping around her back and cradling her head. Here and now, he was safe, she was safe, and tomorrow all of this would be over.

Freydis pulled back. Blackwall’s hands stayed on her shoulders, but gently and lightly, as if he was afraid anything stronger would have her disappearing. She leaned up on the balls of her feet and chastely kissed his bearded cheek.

“Thank you,” she said. “But I’ll do everything to see that future never come to pass.”


End file.
